Best advice for converting lawn to garden

[madison]

What weedeater said.

Put down a raised bed encircled by cement blocks, or stacked urbanite, right on the lawn where you want them.  Soak the ground in the beds.  Lay on several layers of newspaper or cardboard.  Soak again.  Layer on at least a foot of organic compost/soil/vermiculite/peat moss ala lasagna gardening and square foot gardening.  When it starts to break down, add more.  Cover with mulch and wait happily for spring!

[kathyprepper]

Pigs will have it ready in short order. We do the sheet mulching thing with manure, shavings and cardboard or newspapers.

[urbanfarmer]

Pigs?! Cool! I bet they do some good turning. I think Lasagna is just a new fangled term for sheet composting, which most of us have probably done for years. 

[urbanfarmer]

What fun that you did the experiment of turning over the sod next door. Good work. That's exactly the sort of thing we need to know. I was too exhausted this fall to tackle any sod digging.

It was fun, Xenopus! My dad was a scientist. As a result, everything in my life is an experiment.  Everyone laughed at me last year when I did not eat anything out of my garden. It was all an experiment to see how long it took for the plants to bolt and produce viable seeds which were allowed to drop back in the garden and start fall seedlings. The root crops and winter squash were all stored and observed as to which ones kept the longest.

The result? I will always plant Red Kuri winter squash. They were more prolific than other varieties and kept until March! This year everything is being dehydrated, another new experiment. And I HAVE EATEN the results in soups.  I have found the dehydrated vegies to more ready assessable for experimental cooking than canning which involves opening the whole jar and using immediately. With the jars of dehydrated vegies, I can just reach in and grab alittle of this and alittle of that, toss it in hot water and presto, instant soup!

end of thread jack. 

The key thing with the sheet composting is putting in enough dirt, real dirt with real living thingies. I never have understood those formulas that are all bought in bags. . .and dumped into a raised bed frame. Where's the teeming life? The worm eggs, etc?

It also helps to run a lawn mower over the green material and dried leaves to give them a head start on decomposing. I do that before I add it to the sheet/lasagna bed. I also added the litter from the chicken house and all of the rabbit poop as well. Once the chickens had worked it for a few months and I had the consistency I wanted, I covered it up with chicken wire to keep the chickens out and to let the worms live and do their job. Keep in mind this needs to be at least a foot deep if not more or it won't break down. 3 x 3 compost piles will always heat up and break down faster, but the sheet composting is specifically best at killing lawns.

In the Spring I transferred it wheel barrow load at a time to top dress the garden beds. I still use that area for creating the next batch of sheet compost. Still no grass or weeds.

[HungryRaven]

I have a 4 by 7 foot chicken tractor my husband built me several years ago.  It is lightweight 1X1's with chicken wire stapled on.  The top is half covered by a chicken wire 1X1 lid and the other half is open I cover with a half sheet of plywood to help weigh it down and keep rain off.   Anyway when I throw a few birds in there they will decimate any grass within just a few days.  If I want faster yard damage I just add more chickens.  I have to move it daily if I am just keeping a hen with new chicks or they will kill my  lawn.  But for a new garden if you plan far enough ahead you have a week or so to do it just put chickens in a tractor and move it when they are done with a patch.  They rip it up to bare dirt and add fertilizer all at once and they don't need electric fencing like pigs. 

[metaforge]

Sounds like the smothering idea is the way to go - the goal would be to have it available to do some planting as early in spring as possible.  Yes, I should have mentioned I did not want to use chemicals.  Unfortunately, I'm still stuck in suburbia so no chance for chickens, pigs, etc.  Lots of envy there. 

[urbanfarmer]

Unfortunately, I'm still stuck in suburbia so no chance for chickens, pigs, etc.  Lots of envy there. 

I haven't let that stop me.  Stealth and free eggs to the neighbors. No Roosters and keep everything smelling nice. The chicken SS have not hauled me away yet, and my community has a covenant against "livestock". I tell everyone they are pets. I just keep the flock small, hidden, and named.    I let them roam the yard during week days, but not on weekends when more people are home. I also gave away any particularly noisy hens and now have a silent flock.

[SouthEastFarmer]

Pigs will have it ready in short order. We do the sheet mulching thing with manure, shavings and cardboard or newspapers.

+1

borrow some pigs, get out the hose and have a party!  all the better in suburbia... the looks on the neighbors faces would be fantastic!

[Emeline]

Pigs will have it ready in short order. We do the sheet mulching thing with manure, shavings and cardboard or newspapers.

+1

borrow some pigs, get out the hose and have a party!  all the better in suburbia... the looks on the neighbors faces would be fantastic!

Now that sounds like fun!

[bigmike7]

Sounds like the smothering idea is the way to go - the goal would be to have it available to do some planting as early in spring as possible.  Yes, I should have mentioned I did not want to use chemicals.  Unfortunately, I'm still stuck in suburbia so no chance for chickens, pigs, etc.  Lots of envy there. 

Yeah, smother it. By the time your ready to plant in spring you'll have some nice soil. You also might start tossing in and covering up some a small sampling of leaf litter/soil from any local forests. This will do a lot to jump start microorganism populations. I do this and mix some sugar in too to give the organisms some instant food to start. You can buy microorganisms from some nurseries but the easiest/cheapest way is to collect a local population suited to your climate. Ideally, the microorganisms are already in place in your lawn, but pesticides and chemical fertilizers can kill them off and perhaps a lawn supports only a very narrow range of creatures anyway.

If you can get a hold of some manure to dump into the mix, so much the better. Sounds like it will have time to compost in place. Local equestrian centers sometimes let you take manure from the collection bins for free.

Sure you can't get a couple chickens in there on the sly? They love tearing through a mess like that! What's the worst that will happen if a neighbor finds out? Though you should be warned that even some hens can make a small uproar when laying eggs or if they think they detect a predator. And then there's the (not impossible) challenge of keeping them from tearing up small sprouts once you are planting.

Have fun! You might start a small trend in the 'hood...

[metaforge]

Well, the other thing I need to do is some social engineering to get DW on board.  She's got the bug as far as food (Food Inc) and climate change, but in terms of financial crash & PO, I've done some mentioning of things, but she hasn't wanted to really see the full extent of the light yet.  I mentioned chickens in passing and the response was "are you  kidding?  they're filthy and the HOA will come down on us!"     I tried to get her to watch End of Suburbia last night, but she didn't want to be bummed out.   

So, I think step one is to get buy in to actually smother 1/2 of the lawn to make room for more garden.  Then maybe animals in step two.  I might need to look for a thread in one of the social/psych sections of the forum to find out how to enlighten a spouse as far as doom goes.

I'm in a high desert climate, so there are some forests, but I'd have to go up the mountains some to get to them.  That's a good idea though.

[urbanfarmer]

Great ideas BigMike7! Australorps are super quiet and great foragers.

http://www.mypetchicken.com/chicken-breeds/Australorp-B14.aspx

Mine are extremely quiet, they don't even cackle after laying an egg.

[more-gloomer-than-doomer]

Boy am I glad I ran across this thread.  We moved from CT to NC last year.  In CT it seemed to be a lot easier to rototill a lawn and turn it into a garden.  I tried the same thing down here and the grass grew back so fast it was unbelievable!  I ended up basically with a garden growing out of a lawn, (no other weeds anyway!) 

It was a smaller garden but we did pretty well with it anyway.  I want to make it quite a bit bigger for next year so Lasagna it is!

[Permie]

Michael Pilarski (a.k.a. "Skeeter") has a great article posted on his website http://www.friendsofthetrees.net/images/feed_the_world2.pdf -
It goes into detail about different ways to create a home garden. Essentially the sheet mulching method is easier to do, but takes longer for developing good tilth/fertility (because you're waiting for the earthworms to do the tilling).  The tillage method is more work, but breaks up the ground and allows the new roots to push into the soil deeper and sooner. The downside is tillage disturbs the soil - more of a problem in a long-term pasture that has developed good soil over time, than in a lawn which is fairly dead below the top couple inches generally.

Skeeter also talks about using a "kadalo" or grubbing hoe if you choose the tillage route, and you don't have a rototiller available.  An ancient farming tool, it's more efficient than a shovel or spade for tilling the soil (and breaking up grass sod).

Good growing!

[mischief]

One of my side lines is lawn mowing.
Rather than take the clippings to the dump I have started sheet mulching by putting at least 3 inches of clippings on top of mowed lawn.
I have a domed chicken tractor this year too so I have been putting the clippings on the bed 2 over from where the chooks will go next.
The results so far look promising with the grass completly cooked.If it looks alittle bare I put another layer on.
After a couple of weeks the worms start moving in because the area has cooled down which has been great for the hens.
So far I have two beds planted out. The first one I had to dig over because it still had grass coming up but the last one was bare.I still get the odd wheat sprouting from seed the hens didnt find, most I pull out but Im sort of curious as to how they will grow.

Yes I know most people dont mow lawns for a living but.... I do know if you contact a local mower they will be only too happy to get rid of the stuff and not have to pay dump feesI
If you asked for the hedge trimmings you'll probably get all you need of these too.I use these as mulch around the plants, being coarser than grass clippings they dontmatt down as badly and keep the solil cooler and moist.

Yes it does smell abit, I water the beds to keep them moist and sprinkle them with blood and bone and water that in to add goodies that will hopefully make it break down faster.
You could cover it with a tarpauline I suppose to get it cooked faster and contain the smell( i dontthink its that strong but I could be immune)

Next I dig the hole for my seedling alittle bigger than the plant going in and add abit of compost to give it a softer start to life.

The biggest problem I am having is birds flicking the mulch out to get to the worms that have moved back in and more importantly, because I'm trying to grow my own seedlings and I'm not very good at it, they are alittle small so they are taking awile to get going... or am I just impatient.LOL